Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, July 7: Army has decided to decimate top commanders of the militants first to make the major terror outfits leaderless with a view to curb the militant activities, which have witnessed an increase in the Kashmir Valley during the past few weeks.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Army top brass has issued direction to the Commanders to look for leaders of different militant outfits and go for the kill to reduce incidents of violence in the Valley.
It has also asked its Commanders on the LoC along Jammu and Kashmir to maintain best possible surveillance during the Monsoon as Intelligence inputs have pointed out that the militants would go all out to sneak-in into the State in the next couple of months and settle themselves well before the announcement of Parliament and Assembly elections next year.
“Though all militants operating in the State estimated to be around 300 always remained on our hit list, we have devised a strategy to identify the leaders of the militant outfits and their groups within the organisations and target them directly to ensure their killing.
“We believe that leaderless group and the outfit wouldn’t be in a position to carry out tasks or operations unless more commanders were inducted into their ranks from across the LoC,” sources said, adding it has been observed earlier also that the militants, whose group leaders or outfit heads had been killed, were unable to carry out operations as they were rendered “directionless”.
They said most of the outfits or groups within the terror organisations, whose leaders had been killed by security forces and police, remained in wilderness for a long period till the new leadership took over and issued them directions on the tasks they had to carry out.
Noting that killing of eight Army soldiers and some police constables besides targeted attacks on the Panchayat members in the Kashmir Valley were carried out by the militants at the behest of their leadership, sources said it was in this context that the Army would go all out for the militant leadership in the coming days.
For the purpose, sources said, the Intelligence network was on the job to identify the militant leaders, their hideouts and possible places of their visits to eliminate them.
They added that there was definite concern within the Army over the killing of eight soldiers in one terror attack in Srinagar recently. Besides this, the targeted killing of police constables was also a cause of concern for all security agencies and they were on the job to devise a strategy to prevent such incidents in future.
According to figures given by the Union Home Ministry recently and estimates of the Intelligence agencies, there were about 250 to 300 militants, who were still active in the State. They belonged to different militant outfits. Sources said majority of the active militants were operating in the Kashmir Valley.
At the same time, the Army has also directed its Commanders heading formations on the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir to extra ordinary surveillance measure to prevent fresh infiltration of the militants with inputs suggesting that a large number of militants were fully prepared to sneak into this side during the next few months as they wanted to settle themselves before next year’s Parliamentary and Assembly elections in the State.
“Though the Army was already on high alert on the LoC in view of increase activity across and infiltration attempts, the Commanders have been asked to further step-up the anti-infiltration measures,” sources said.
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